But how much money are they actually making from the hardware, and how much were they expecting to make from eBook sales? The other devices don't need to be rooted to run apps like Kindle.
If people are buying NCs, rooting them and then buying books from Amazon, who benefits more, B&N or Amazon?

But how much money are they actually making from the hardware, and how much were they expecting to make from eBook sales? The other devices don't need to be rooted to run apps like Kindle.
If people are buying NCs, rooting them and then buying books from Amazon, who benefits more, B&N or Amazon?

Well, this goes to the sustainability of this model, which I admit is a good question. Although I'm not sure what the answer is - even with some people rooting and using Kindle, I suspect that a decent majority will use the device basically as intended and buy B&N books. So the approach may well be sustainable.

However, my point goes more to how the price affected the popularity of the device, rather than to whether it is a sustainable model.

But given the difficulty that other Android tablet makers are having competing with the ipad on price, the NC's model may actually be *more* sustainable.